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Nearly 18 years ago, Alexandra (Alex) Jamieson was at the forefront of the booming health coaching and consulting business. Jamieson has helped creative and driven women find motivation to live healthier and happier lives through holistic health mentorships. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, she has relied on digital marketing to build and maintain her brand and business.

How would you describe your business? Who are your clients?

Alex Jamieson: I am a consultant and coach. Almost all my clients are professional women, between the ages of 40-50 years old, and are white and upper-middle class. The coaching has evolved from food and nutrition centric for the first 13 years, and has evolved to a focus on holistic health. Prior to the release of Super Size Me (she co-created and co-starred in the documentary) a friend suggested that I create a website with an email capture. Following the release of the documentary, ten thousand people signed up to learn more from me.

How did your business then evolve?

AJ: At the beginning, I had no social media presence, and I only used email to market my services to people who I captured through my website. I advertised through weekly emails, which focused on relevant topics such as healthy foods, health detoxes, and recipes. I’ve always shared my story and how it’s relevant for people who want to work with me.

How has the evolution of social media in the past decade influenced your business?

AJ: It’s a dance to be honest! I need to stay aligned with who I am, and my values, while staying top of mind for people. Every time a new social platform comes out, I try to be an early adopter because if it takes off, I’ve then positioned myself well. I’ve tried it and done it all. From Pinterest to Snapchat, Periscope to podcasts, Facebook ads to writing articles for other platforms- it takes roughly seven exposures for someone to buy something for me. Roughly 30%-40% of my clients come from digital marketing efforts, and this can be scary. What if one day, one, or multiple platforms shut down? That could be devastating for my business.

How do you personalize content for the different platforms that you use?

AJ: It’s important to acknowledge the different audiences using different platforms, and what type of content the same user wants to see on the various platforms they’re using. For instance, on Instagram, my followers are younger, want to see more personal posts (my cats, art, and political opinions), and I see a correlation between these followers and my podcast listeners. Because the platform is aimed at a millennial audience, they are expecting brands and influencers to be honest, authentic, and real. Whereas with LinkedIn, you won’t see my political opinions, and unfortunately fewer pictures of my cats. Here, I’ve been posting about my most recent book, Getting to Hell Yes, and how it can be used as a sales and customer tool for businesses. On LinkedIn, I’m promoting myself as an executive and leadership coach for women.

Jamieson’s post on Facebook promoting her bookLinkedIn post promoting her book to a professional audience

What tips do you have for small business owners and people marketing their personal brands, in using digital marketing to expand their business?

AJ: Be yourself. Write and post your own content, engage with people, invite followers to engage with you as if posts are important conversations. If you plan to write books, you must have an established brand to get a book deal these days. Publishers expect your audience to buy the book! It helps to be part of a network of other similar businesses with similar platforms. Be giving, generous, and your sector will help support you.

See related content on tailoring content to digital marketing channels:

As a runner and a not-for-profit professional, I thought that the Charity Miles App seemed too good to be true. I quickly realized that it was an innovative platform that lived up to its mission.

How it Works

By downloading the Charity Miles App, individuals can track their running, walking, or biking activity and convert mileage into donations to their favorite charities. The app allows for individuals to choose from over 40 charities, which will receive $0.25 per mile run or walked, and $0.10 per mile biked. Individuals select their activity type, enable location services for the app to track activity, and start their workout. When finished, it’s as simple as clicking the finish button, which leads to a workout summary which includes mileage, activity time, and the amount donated to charity. Users can even take a photo of their workout, which will generate an image to promote the apps and activity through social media.

The Positives

Easy to use: it only took a couple of minutes to create a user profile and figure out how to log miles.

It’s a win-win-win: everyone benefits- users, who get to contribute to social causes, companies who get high-impact advertising space, and charities, who receive money from every mile logged.

The Negatives

Lack of functionality: The app won’t be replacing your GPS watch anytime soon. Mileage wasn’t incredibly accurate, and I was unable to pause my activity when at a stoplight.

Missed promotional opportunities: If you plan to share your activity mileage via social media, you can only so right after you’ve finished the activity. This removes opportunities for users to advertise the app and it’s sponsors.

An Innovative Digital Marketing Medium for Companies

Charity Miles touts the ability for sponsors to maintain a captive audience due to the structure of the app/sponsor/user setup. By sponsoring the app, companies can advertise their charitable giving through the agreement to donate $X per each mile logged in the app. Companies can expose app users to a variety of sponsored content, including blog posts, product discounts, and free trials. This structure melds corporate giving and advertising, as sponsorships fund the donations.

Will I Continue Using Charity Miles?

In short, yes. The app is easy to use and is a low commitment option in giving to social causes. As long as you can get past the amount of sponsored content (hey, they are donating money on your behalf) I recommend that you try it on your next walk, run, or bike ride too.

Acquiring and retaining solid employees requires focus on their value to your organization..

More and more businesses recognize the correlation of increased employee morale with a greater sense of productivity, engagement and loyalty. Use these simple tips to transform the landscape of your organization and achieve greater success for your team.

1. Promote a healthy environment through emphasis on work-life balance

It’s important to provide flexibility that enables fostering a well-balanced personal and work life. Managers can improve their teams’ productivity and performance through encouragement of maintaining strong and healthy relationships. Advocating for employees to leave work on time can benefit both the organization and the individual, as this decreases likelihood of an eventual “burnout”.

2. Foster an atmosphere of inclusion for your employees

Employees need to be recognized to feel valued. Make them part of the big picture through clear and frequent communication of business updates, in addition to providing both group and individual direction. Driving transparency and honesty plays a significant role in increasing creativity and innovation from your team.

3. Identify career opportunities to enhance motivation

Thoughtful conversations around potential career paths, coupled with relevant training recommendations can decrease likelihood of employees leaving your firm. By focusing on their individual ambitions, you can determine how to better align your staff to the business. Start by finding ways to help them grow in their current role, further developing their sense of drive and increasing their potential for success with your organization.

Everyone is looking for the best way to appeal to the perfect audience for their products. Kick you marketing campaign into high gear with Poodles! Here are 7 reasons to use a poodle to drive your internet traffic.

1. PerceivedWealth: Poodles have been used as status symbol by the wealthy for generations due to their elegant features and elite intelligence. Use them to increase the perceived value of your product.

2. Emotional Appeal: Dog Food Marketing is the term used when users of the product are not the decision makers. Using poodles for advertising your products appeals to those decision makers emotional instincts with a relatable hook.

3. Play up the Stakes: Poodles are one of the smartest dog breeds and can be trained to do just about anything. Draw in your target audience with poodles in offbeat action too wild for anyone to forget!

5. Ruffle some Feathers: Poodles can be easily tailored to bring out undeniable sassy attitudes unlike any other dog breed. Throw shade at your competition by humiliating them. Complaining will only turn your audience away so turn up the heat by throwing in some laughter at their expense.

6. Feminism: Poodles have a lot of feminine appeal…Establish better engagement with your female clientele by demonstrating all that female power. Just don’t take it too far, otherwise you might creep them out.

7. Masculinity: Poodles are hunting dogs. Use them to highlight the masculinity and agility of your product (Warning: Graphic content from real hunting scenes!).

Our Strategy

Develop interesting content to engage the reader. Our posts were designed to be topical and catchy. Our themes ranged from politics, technology, millennials, dieting, pets, social media and Lebron James while finding ways to relate the content to marketing

We targeted a wide variety of readers and aimed to keep them engaged with quality content once they hit our page. More importantly, we wanted to establish credibility with our audience to develop a relationship that would encourage them to come back for more

We used a variety of platforms to promote our posts

Since we designed our content for mass appeal, we used an assortment of websites and social media platforms to reach a large audience. Our goal was to cast a large net, learn from our successes and failures, then apply this knowledge to our latest post.

How our strategy evolved

Target a specific audience

Our content and our promotional efforts evolved by becoming more specialized and focused. We learned that writing content for a smaller segment would yield better results and allow us to target our promotional efforts more effectively.

Plan ahead

We made the mistake of writing content without having an established channel in place to reach our audience. Knowing the specific method we planned to use to reach our audience enabled us to write content directly catered to our readers and the platform.

Key takeaways

Do your research

Know your audience

Know your platform

Gather metrics

Performance analysis

The brief description of our posts

Listicles

The idea behind this first post was to create something that would satisfy the Listicle requirement and at the same time provide us an opportunity to learn more about social media marketing. We wanted to create content that was beneficial to the reader as well as for us. We applied what we learned from this listicle to our marketing campaign

For this post, we picked Lebron James because of his popularity and knew that most sports fans either love him or hate him. We wanted to grab potential reader’s attention with our title, but then tie it back to marketing with the content.

Product Review

We chose earbuds primarily due to their popularity. By now, pretty much everyone in our target audience would have seen or heard about these snazzy little devices but may not have taken the time to read up on them. We wanted to give an honest, first-hand review that cut out the bs and was straight to the point.

Original Video

In this furry post, we wanted to show our audience the power of pet persuasion. We followed Edson and his pup Mia on their journey to the pet store. We loved this local company’s marketing strategy for getting customers (2 legged and 4 legged) in the door and wanted to share.

Op-eds

Donald Trump is in the news no matter where you look. We wanted to piggy-back on his popularity while exploring his marketing genius. This post dives into how Trump used various marketing techniques to get elected as President of the United States. Whether you agree with his politics or not, you must give him credit for his success.

Click Bait

Who doesn’t want to learn more about the latest fad diet? Oh wait, that’s not what this post is about? This post is intended to simplify the weight loss strategy and give the reader key insights leading a more healthy.

This marketing tool powerhouse, focuses on Marketing Automation, allowing your sales & marketing team to work smarter, not harder. Enjoy the ease of Advanced Email Marketing and formulated Lead Nurturing that helps you stay in touch with your prospect and move them to the Happy Customer Stage. Pardot truly is an all-in-one marketing solution. Other features include:

Ready to turn on the artificial intelligence? Check out the AI-Powered Social Media Marketing Suite from SocialBakers. Be a Master Marketer with Content Intelligence that provides details on A/B campaigns and what your consumers & prospects prefer. Check out the full suite of features:

Focused on the personal element for your company’s marketing? Emma’s Content Creation is an easy to use interface that provides a personal but professional email campaign as a result. With seamless integration with various CRM systems, Emma is the service you need to create beautiful emails that provide great ROI. Also included in Emma’s services:

Marketing Automation

Personalized triggers & follow up emails (tracking the journey of the customer)

Need to know if people are searching for your product or service online? Well go to the source, Google Trends. Explore what the world is searching to help narrow down your customer locale with global heat maps and compare keywords to see which provide better results. Use the Historical Search Database to see what is trending in searches, and use the analysis feature to find related topics and queries. Click the link below to take a short Google Lesson on how to effectively use Google Trends.

Going Mobile? Who isn’t now a-days? Take AppAnnie for a spin and see how your business ranks in the app market with data & analytics. How much should you charge for access to your app? How can I ensure my app is driving engagement & targeting the right audience? AppAnnie knows it all, and can provide a lot of knowledge for a little. Check out AppAnnie:

We know there is a plethora of great software, knowledge base, and tools in the marketing game today. We hope you enjoyed the tools we use to help make our marketing efforts successful.

Check back this week for more exciting insight into the brave new world of Marketing!

What do you think about the tools of the Digital Marketing Trade? Give us your thoughts and feedback by clicking the survey link below!

Airbnb: We Are Here Campaign

What was this about?This Facebook Live campaign was Airbnb’s way of showing potential customers just how much there is to do in cities around the world. The best part is they could experience it with their Airbnb host.

Why this worked?There has been a dramatic rise in video content on Facebook for the past couple of years. Especially live video. These in-depth tours take viewers above and beyond and show them the best experiences about the places they could visit.

Blendtec: Will It Blend Campaign

What was this about?They capitalized on everyone’s curiosity of seeing random objects smashed into a pulp by a blender (especially Jar Jar Binks). Blendtec created a brilliant campaign to show off its high-powered blender by asking the question, “Will it blend?”

Why it worked?Thanks to Blendtec’s original idea, their Facebook video campaign drew in thousands of viewers. Their ability to blend (or attempt to blend) some of the most random objects around immediately draws your attention. It’s also led to multiple spin-offs of other companies trying similar feats.

Anthropologie: Open Call

What was it about? Anthropologie ran an Instagram campaign that encouraged users to enter the competition for a chance to model for the brand. Users had to post photos of themselves wearing Anthropologie clothes with the hashtag #AnthroOpenCall. One of their promotional posts included the following text: “Sure, you could attend one of our fall fashion shows, but wouldn’t it be more fun to be IN it? To find out how you (yes, you!) could be one of our models, head to the blog. #AnthroOpenCall

Why it worked?This campaign worked due to its’ competitive element and also the interesting and desirable reward. Anthropologie offered their audience a once in a lifetime chance to their target audience. They increased the awareness of their own brand by encouraging that audience to share photos of themselves wearing Anthropologie clothes, exposing their brand to potential new buyers. It also gave the participants excitement to further market the brand unknowingly (free advertising).

Wealthsimple’s #InvestingForHumans

What was it about? The company interviewed ‘real’ people about money problems. And Wealth Simply avoided the cheap route on this. They hired the best, non-agency talent they could find. They used an award-winning filmmaker to get people to give their most honest, on-the-spot money stories. They used a backdrop of branded, plain-colour walls that, together, make a social media feed look like it was purposefully designed. Then, they disseminated those interviews across the web, and on TV.

Why it worked?These were not celebrity endorsements of Wealthsimple products. They were ordinary people talking about money. That’s it. Some of the interviewees were caught off guard, and that was perfect. The filmmaker captured emotions people had about their money, not technical explanations about investing. But you still get the message Wealthsimple is trying to send, without actually saying it:‘Don’t be foolish about your money. Start investing now. There’s no time to waste. Let’s not have this money problem again.’

Burger King’s take on net neutrality

What was it about?Burger King could have advertised a delicious Whopper by telling you how juicy it is. But instead, they sent a political message. Net neutrality was repealed in the USA in late 2017. Then, in early 2018, Burger King took it upon themselves to demonstrate what their brand is about: equality for all. To show how that relates to net neutrality, they disseminated a viral video on social media to explain the connection.

Why it worked?This is also an excellent example of capitalizing on a specific, historical event to catch customers’ attention. It will certainly make you think about Burger King every time net neutrality is brought up or discussed. It has a way of personalizing the affects of the issue and involving the heart of consumers.

GE’s Balance the Equation Campagin

What was it about?GE announced they would work to fill 20,000 new STEM roles with female hires by the year 2020. If successful, GE would be the largest tech company in America to claim a 50:50 ratio of male-to-female employees working in technical entry-level positions. One of their most creative campaigns to date is their Balance the Equation campaign, featuring National Medal of Science in Engineering winner, Millie Dresselhaus. GE portrays Millie Dresselhaus as a superstar, with her face plastered on magazines and billboards. Millennials run up to her to take selfies. She’s got a line of dolls and even an emoji face.

Why it worked?It puts a positive spin on being famous for the right reasons by equating the fame a female scientist to the Kardashians. While there is no data quite yet on how many women GE has hired, the campaign should still be considered a success. Between GE’s #BalanceTheEquation hashtag and its GE-girls.com website, the company has secured thousands of retweets and comments, all while making inroads with younger girls who could one day become the STEM experts of tomorrow.

Chiquita Banana’s Solar Eclipse

What was it about?In a moment of marketing brilliance, which was almost too bright to stare at directly, Chiquita took full credit for the 2017 solar eclipse, dubbing the sun’s crescent shape the Banana Sun. For three weeks, starting on August 7th, the company went straight up bananas, creating gifs, a website, and a massive glowing banana which they unveiled on August 20th near the Flatiron Building in NYC.

Why it worked?Timing is everything when it comes to influential marketing campaigns. Chiquita that took advantage of the much anticipated solar eclipse which made its way across the U.S. on August 21st of last year. Thanks to the Banana Sun, Chiquita managed to garner thousands of new Twitter followers, hundreds of comments on its Banana Sun GIFs, and tens of thousands of retweets. At least two of the company’s solar eclipse videos were viewed over a million times.

Hopping on the millennials train to become Instagram famous isn’t as easy as treating yourself to a slice of cake. With more than 700 million total active users and 8 million accounts using business profiles, you need a plan to keep you on the track to Instagram stardom #winning.

Think of yourself as a business and promoting it in a way that people continue to talk about you, share what you have to offer and don’t forget about you after a couple of visits. To avoid falling off the track, it’s important to segment your follower base. Audience segmentation helps divide your followers into distinct groups so that you can increase the number of interactions. This helps map your followers and gives you awareness of what type of content they engage with and continue to share. Remember to have a consistent theme and aesthetic for your feed that aligns with your brand voice and visuals that your followers can connect with #allthingspretty #dontberandom.

Let’s Get Cozy

Followers come for the aesthetic and theme but stay for the entertainment. That most often means opening up your personal life to the world. Let’s start with your bio. Setting your bio seems like a simple task but this is the first thing visitors see when they are deciding to follow you or not. Research has shown it takes less than two/tenths of a second for people to form their judgements. That’s not a lot of time to capture someone’s attention! Be simple, succinct, personal, well formatted and get emoji happy.

As you develop your following it’ll be important to showcase your theme but also tie in parts of your personal life. It’s not uncommon for business instagrams to have less followers than the actual person who runs it! Bring others into your life to create that close knit feeling to bond your followers together and to your story.

What Catches the Eye

Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Bob Ross, <your name here>? Aspire to the level of the masters but recognize that you’re not going to get there. Maintaining integrity to your own artistic aesthetic is more important than reaching someone else’s definition of genius.

Developing a loyal and engaged following requires being consistent to your established ideas and themes. And capturing a moment requires a combination of creative talent, technical skill, luck. Your followers will save and share the best of your photos so focus on the subject at hand. Keep it simple, don’t overwhelm with too much going on in your photos. Lighten up, tend towards bright and vibrant photos. Technology can make up for deficits in photographic talent or skill. But remember, you can’t fix stupid.

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Hashtags are breadcrumbs guiding your followers to the payout of an amazing post and drive traffic to your content.

Stick to #four or less hashtags a post. Don’t be afraid to blaze a new trail and develop hashtags that are meaningful within your community of followers. And remember to play by the rules. Instagram knows that your #Bali post originated from #YourOfficeDesk. Beware, Instagram will shadowban (hide) you appearing in the feed for that hashtag.

Promote, Promote, Promote

Let’s be honest, the end goal is for your Instagram life to be sponsored and to say goodbye to the office life forever.

But how do you get there? Engaging your followers is a great first step. Do this by responding to their comments, liking back their posts and giving shoutouts. Building your loyalty will keep them coming back and boost your visibility. Keeping followers engaged by consistent posting is vital. Use 3rd party apps like Later to help manage your posting while you’re busy living your best life and creating new content. Don’t be afraid to reach out to product based accounts and ask them if you can promote their product; this will benefit you and their brand. Last but not least, get local! Build your follower base from your own backyard. Check in at locations, share local events and post from them. The more you put in to making connections the further your reach will continue.

Now go out there and take over the Instagram world! Don’t forget us when you’re famous.

In his article ‘Why Businesses Can’t Survive Without Social Media’ Ryan Holmes makes three major assertions about the necessity of social media in relation to generating revenue and relationships.

All business should be on some form of social media platform The author is correct when he asserts that all businesses should go on some form of social media platform. It was already a trend in 2015 and it is a trend that is still spreading around the world and the possibilities are endless. Social media is an open and flexible world with constant innovations.

2. Interactions First Channels Second

Interactions first, channels second (IFCS) is a value that often gets overlooked. Set first your strategy, target your client, know your publications and what kind of reactions you want to provoke. After this, you should select a platform which fits within your strategy.

3. Companies are often wrongly hesitant to join social media

Companies are not often willing to join these social media platforms. Excuses range from it takes too much time, we’d have to be on every platform, there’s no benefit and many more. Moreover, in the past managers or CEOs didn’t see the causal effect of social media and were looking for the wrong numbers. They were expecting to see an increase in turnover or sales. As we have learned, there were analyzing the wrong figures. Social media affects other aspects of the customer’s experience and opinion before the purchasing decision. Lastly, the author points out the fact that going on social media is not easy, it is changing all the time and you have to be aware of all the adaptations.

For the full article follow: http://fortune.com/2015/11/18/businesses-cant-survive-social-media/